The King is Dead. Jim Lewis
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the tone of a time: not just forward over everything to come, but seeping outward too, in every direction, like wine on the figures of a carpet. She helped her mother in the kitchen, there was an aunt who got drunk at the party that evening, and wept noisily all night at something no one else had noticed and the woman herself couldn’t explain. That night Nicole slept in her old bedroom and listened to her parents in the room next door, arguing in soft voices and then, worse, giving in to that silence which had frightened her so when she was a child, and still made her uneasy. Poor father: a few years after she was born he’d contracted a fever, which was polio and paralyzed his left leg from the hip down. Poor mother: a local beauty alone with an infant, her husband quarantined and perhaps never to come home. By the time he recovered they were strangers again, the large family they’d dreamed of was not to be, he retreated into hobbled quiet, and she wore a seaside cheerfulness everywhere but on her mouth’s expression. Now Nicole listened as her mother sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and her father cracked his knuckles as if he would break his fingers right off.
The next day she was back at work, and that very afternoon John Brice appeared again. The same man, he walked around the store a little bit and then left. But she knew he was going to come back again, she knew she was going to know him, and she waited for him; a few days went by, and then right when she’d decided to stop thinking about it, he opened the door and came in. He had a look, didn’t he? Not just his expression, which was ready, but his clothes. This time he was wearing a grey double-breasted suit and a wide blue-and-grey tie, a foppish outfit, kind of high-toned, she thought, although he wore it very casually. He ambled up to the counter where she stood. Hello, was what he said.
She should have just said hello in return. Instead she fell back on her shopgirl manners. How may I help you? she asked.
He paused. I was just looking, he said, and motioned to the inventory with one long pale hand.
Anything in particular? she said
No…. He shook his head a little.
Maybe if you tell me who you’re shopping for, I can recommend something. The sun outside the windows shone down on an empty street, and she looked up and read the name of the store imprinted backward on the inside of the day-dark yellow glass.
What’s your name? he asked. She didn’t expect that, and she hesitated. It was something she didn’t want to give away, because she knew she’d never be able to get it back. Come on, now, he said, and made her feel foolish.
Nicole, she said at last. Lattimore. It was as if all the dresses and underthings were filled with silent women, watching women: were they smiling or shaking their heads? It didn’t matter anymore. It was done, really, with that. She gave him her name, and that was all he needed.
On the third weekend after they’d met he invited her for a drive down to Sea Island and she accepted. He had a huge blue car, a Packard Coupe that he’d bought almost new a few weeks after he’d arrived in town; he came to get her at the hour they’d set, just past dawn, and parked outside her apartment building, but he didn’t ring her buzzer. She only realized he was there when she grew impatient waiting and put her head out the window to see if he was coming; then she went hurrying down to him, though she didn’t chastise him for not coming to her door. It seemed like one of his things, she could let him keep it if he wanted.
It was a long way, and chilly, and he drove fast, flying along the edge of the ocean, beside inlet and alongside islet, blue outside his window and green outside hers. On Sea Island they bought a basket lunch from a general store, then parked by the ocean and scared the seagulls off the sand with the car horn. Later, they kissed until her lips were sore and her tongue tasted just like his. They arrived back in Charleston that evening; it was too late for dinner, really, but he was hungry, so they stopped for a hamburger. She asked him what he intended to do with his life. She thought it would be a good way to begin to get to know him.
He didn’t hesitate and he didn’t look away. I’m going to be a bandleader, he said, and for a moment she couldn’t imagine what in the world he was talking about. Play the saxophone, jazz, he went on, and he held his hands up, one above the other, gripping an imaginary instrument and wiggling his fingers. Jazz, jazz, jazz. New York, Chicago, maybe Los Angeles. I’m going to be famous.
At first she thought he was joking; it had never occurred to her that a man could have such an ambition, that wealth and fame could be studied, rather than simply stumbled upon by those with improbable access to the unreal. Oh, you are? she said teasingly, and she saw him wince. I’m sure you have the talent, she added hastily, and you certainly look the part. But isn’t it difficult to break in?
Sure it is, he said. He paused. I’ve got a little luck, he admitted. My father, over in Atlanta—he has some money. He stopped again, as if he was suddenly embarrassed by the rarity of his fortune. My father is what you might call … a wealthy man. He doesn’t much approve of what I’m trying to do, but he’s willing to support me for a little while.
Then why did you come to Charleston?
My grandfather had a house here, he said. When he died, he left it to my parents, but they never use it. So I came up here to get away, to practice—you know. To get myself ready.
Ready, she thought. Odd syllables. Was she ready, herself? The more she thought about the word, the stranger it became.—And here was the waitress with the check, it was time for him to take her home.
Things about him that she loved: He was tender and devoted. He was funny, and though she’d never actually seen him on stage she was sure he was very good, and so dedicated that he was bound to be successful. He needed her in order to be happy, and he never hid the fact. He never hid anything: he wore all his emotions on his face—ambition, amusement, amorousness. He had that odd, faintly extravagant style, not just in his clothes but in almost everything he did, from the drink he ordered—a martini, bone dry, three green olives, on the rocks—to the language he used when he was excited. He was optimistic all the time, and negotiated the world with an ease that couldn’t be gainsaid.
Things about him that she never could be comfortable with: He spoke to her as if he were trying to coax her over a cliff. He judged the world immediately around him severely and without sympathy. He was moody. He had no other friends but her. Many things had come easily for him—money, for example, and self-confidence, and a sense of purpose—and he didn’t understand that those things didn’t come for her at all. He could be stubborn and impatient. He was more sure of his feelings for her than he should have been, and there was no reason why he might not change his mind. He was a field in which disappointment grew.
In later days they would go to the movies, and afterward he would do imitations of all the parts, the leads, the character actors, bit players, the women too, his voice cracking comically as he reached for the higher notes. Some of his impressions were startlingly accurate, and some of them were just terrible, and the worse they were the more she adored them. Then he would drive her back to her apartment, and, because she had no radio, they would sit outside her building, listening to swing while they kissed under the shadows of a tree—once for such a long time that the battery ran down, and when it was time for him to go home he couldn’t get the engine started, and he had to call out a truck to come help. After that he made sure to start the car every half hour or so, letting it idle for a few minutes while they went on with their talking, necking, talking, their raw rubbing at each other.
Oh, how much she loved that car, the shallow, intoxicating smell of its upholstery, the chrome strips—like piping on a dress—that bordered the slot where the window sat, the white cursive lettering on the dashboard and the fat round button that freed the door of the glove compartment. These were elements with which she shared her sentiment. Did he ever know? His keys hung from the ignition on a chain that passed through the center